


"what the false heart doth know"

by lestvt



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Alcohol/Drug Use, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blood Drinking, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Insert Fic, M/M, POV Alternating, POV First Person, Post TOTBT, Temporary Character Death, in which there is gratuitous drama and a general lack of communication on all fronts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 21:48:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17129333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lestvt/pseuds/lestvt
Summary: [Written for the VC Secret Santa Gift Exchange, 2018 - Happy Holidays!]As usual things are far from peaceful in that old townhouse on Royal Street, right in the heart of New Orleans:Louis reopens old wounds that haven’t quite gotten a chance to heal, Lestat reacts as harshly as expected and cuts him even deeper, and poor David is left to deal with the consequences. Only, with a pair as stuck in their ways as these two, what’s a man to do besides hope for the best?Lestat, Louis, and David respectfully, each take turns telling their side of the story.





	1. Lestat, "In Delusion"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rebness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rebness/gifts).



> This definitely needs to be edited again, and I will. But for now here it is...
> 
> EDIT 2/15/19: TFW you go to edit your fic and realize that Lestat started the sex scene clothed, only to end it miraculously nude... At least Louis's sudden lack of clothing made sense contextually, geez! lol  
> Fixed a few other things too, because I'm a perfectionist.

It rained for a spell not long ago. The sky had cleared up by now, not a cloud left in sight, but the evidence of its having happened was creeping in from beyond the window, left open from before. Filtered through the plants lining the gallery they lead to, the wind came with a buffet of information tinted floral and petrichor. I felt the damp heat it created cling to my hair and face, salting the smell of food and booze and sick trampled into the sidewalks, and enhancing them when they hit my tongue.

But as always, it was best to simply listen. To hear the sporadic dripping of the lingering water as it seeped off of the rooftops and gutters, the splash of a puddle run over by a car speeding by, the amped up roaring of the Mississippi in the distance, still audible to me even over the sounds of the populace drawn to it. And I thought of the way rain always seemed to change mortal moods, like it did my own, as there came the tell-tale sounds of a couple making love in the apartment a few blocks down.

For whatever reason, I thought of the quiet boisterousness of the swamp then. I recalled the sense of calm the sounds of life had once bestowed upon me. I closed my eyes and imagined wading between the cypress trees, running my hands over their mossy limbs as an alligator slithered away in the water to my right. And I thought of a time when I too was a simple creature of habit, like the reptile, but warmer. When no words from another being on Earth could bring me such doubt. 

( _“I’d hate you for it!” was what Louis had said._

_“You mean you don’t hate me already?” was my clever reply._

_“God, if only!” he’d cried. “How much easier this would be if I did!”_ )

I scoffed at the memory. I was seconds away from closing the window and shutting it out when David walked into the room.

“Well?” he prompted, his hands tucked neatly beneath his arms.

“What?” I feigned ignorance.

David didn’t dignify this with a response. Instead he gave me that pointed gentlemanly look of disdain tinged by pity that I so detest and shifted his weight on his feet as if settling in for some long, excruciating debate.

I thought about taking him into my arms, simply to hold him in appreciation and love for his presence and his ability to see through me even at my most opaque. I hoped to wash that rotten expression off his face as I had not managed with the other’s. But when I made to do just that, I could not bring myself to stand. Oh, how dreaded and uncharacteristically cowardly of me, I know! Then again, so was this place I found myself occupying. Even now.

I looked down to my fingers, tapping against the top of the wooden writing desk of their own accord. For some reason it occurred to me then that my body might have a will of its own, one that I’d been neglecting. And it made my skin feel suddenly prickled, like cactus, with a fleeting sting.   

David sighed. “This is your plan then? To sit here sulking all night?”

I glared at him for that. He should know better. I do not sulk. 

“As a matter of fact, you do. Quite a lot, actually. I’d even go as far as to say you’re the most accomplished sulk-er I know, bar none.” He said this last part with great emphasis.

With a spontaneous burst of energy, I jerked violently in my seat, upsetting the stability of the desk and sending a pen rolling towards my hand. With a humorless chuckle, I flicked it to the ground. As it bounced and rolled near my feet, I smirked.

“I don’t doubt you’d have mentioned it by now if you knew, but I’ll still have to ask.” David, in a very human way, cleared his throat before continuing. “Has _Louis_ ever taken such rash action?”

My mouth formed a thin line. I had to think on that for a moment.

Amazingly enough, I could not recall a time. Indirectly, yes, definitely, but as far as I knew he’d never gotten as close to being proactive about it as I had. I gave his favorite pet, my good friend, Catholic Guilt, all the credit for that. Still, I would not put it passed him. In fact, a holier, more masochistic part of me might call it inevitable. Come to think of it, I’m sure he’d enjoy hearing me say that.

“Ah, but it’s the actions he _hasn’t_ taken that really count,” I spat, staring at the pen on the floor. “And as I’ve told you both time and time again, I knew it was doomed to fail.”

 _(“Don’t you dare start on that again – not with me!”_ )

“Lestat,” David admonished cautiously, voice cushioned and pleading, “it’s been nearly four hours.” _Four hours_. He said it with such reverence, as though those four hours meant anything in comparison to the decades. The centuries. The eternity. “Surely, you plan to go after him.”

I barked out a laugh. “You assume too much, David. Now, why in the hell would I do something like that?” _Yet again!_ I did not add.

“Because you want to. You love him sorely, and you’re sick with guilt.”

Sick with guilt? Now, that had to be a joke! What could’ve possibly given him such an impression? Obviously, I didn't feel guilty; I had nothing to be guilty for. Save that for Louis. And I wasn’t fucking sulking!

“Dawn is coming,” David warned.   

I threw up my arms. “As every morning it does!”  

“Lestat, don’t be stubborn. You aren’t fooling anyone – least of all yourself.”

I had to look at him when he said that. When I did, I instantly regretted it. So simply, I got caught up in admiring his immortal complexion and youthful face. It was skewed by a sense of age, betraying his nature upon first glance, as it does for most of us. And yet, even in this new vessel it remained so fittingly human on him, so boldly true and unashamed.

 _My dear, trusted friend._ I envied him for carrying such fidelity in his soul that no matter the body would stick. No matter the disloyalty of the flesh.

He was right of course, or at least he was sure that he was. But I did not want him to be. I wanted to hate them both! That was the truth of it, _my_ truth. And, sore love or no, I would probably kill him if he didn’t leave my side immediately! Hell, I’d probably kill them both if they returned, and I wouldn’t feel a damn thing about it! Let the sun come, see if I care! Let's see!      

David smiled, politely cruel man that he is. “Why not sit at your own desk?”   

I looked down at the wood beneath my arms, marked up by use. With a huff, I slapped my hands atop it and stood up, prepared to do just that. I could feel his worried eyes on me though, like flies persistently landing on my shoulders as I walked away. I tried to brush him off with a swat at nothing. But it was never quite that easy.  

“Lestat…”

I closed the door between us.

“Lestat, don’t you dare!” David shouted through it.

I almost laughed, but stopped myself. Had I permitted it, it probably would’ve sounded like a sob. By saying no more than that, David told me more than I needed to know. Then he too, with that placid remorse he gets about him, wisely left me to be.

Of course, livid as I was with him for not loving me enough to lie to me, I still listened to his careful footsteps on the stairs and out the door as he went. His voice sounded out the syllables of my name repeatedly in consoling caveat as he walked down the road, turning south (the way I wanted to go), and faded into obscurity.  

Well, that was alright. At least I knew he did not begrudge me, even if he wasn’t on my side…   

I still wasn’t sure what he was referring to though. Don’t I dare what? He must have seen something in me that I had not – likely, he usually did.

I closed the two remaining doors, shutting out the world, and sat at my desk, alone at last in that quiet, haunted room brought back from death.

I had no idea what it was I intended to do.

Now that they’d both gone, I could admit it to myself, at least just this much. I’d been occupying Louis’s chair for a reason: I did yearn to go after him. Not a guilt, but there was this nagging feeling emanating from deep within that told me I’d hurt him too personally this time. I’d said some truly terrible things tonight, tailored tight to fit my wretched love. And true though they may have been, now I foolishly feared he might never come home to me. So, there was my dilemma – or _ours_ more accurately.

But why should I be the one to go after him? Nothing is ever good enough for _Saint_ Louis anyway. By my word, not his, for he will not own up to his esteem. But by his word no penance could ever match the pain I’ve caused him. Evidently. So, why should I bother? I can’t fix this.  

Because he won’t say it, but I’m sure what he really wants is for me to go back and change the past. Of course, that’s the one thing I cannot do. But does he not know that if I could, I would? Just for him I would do it, no matter the cost! Does he not understand that? And it would not be an act formed from my own regret, because I have none. But because I cannot stand to hear again how my disregard has hurt him so – so much more than his could ever hurt me.

Even now, I hear his voice.   

 _(“Did you stop to think, Lestat, even for a moment, how I would have been affected? What gall you have, to then come and ask_ that _of me! Did you ever once consider my pain?”)_

No. The truth was I couldn’t bear to – I simply didn’t allow it. After all, I knew, had I spared Louis’s feelings a second honest thought, right then that would be the end of my plans. And the thing is, I didn’t want my plans to come to an end. I didn’t want to think on Louis or his needs, or his being ended. I didn’t want to remember that pulling sensation in my chest that kept me guarding him. Because it was not about him. It was about me.

Besides, why should it matter now, when so much time as passed since its failure? How can he justify hating me for it even still? And what good is a promise when we both know it’s forced?

I was beyond anger now, passed into full blown rage! In the moment I had optimistically thought, _if anyone, Louis will understand. If anyone, he can emphasize_. But he hadn’t, the hypocrite! My mistake for expecting anything less, I suppose.

But remembering it now had me burning. I felt an intense urge to break something, like his neck! He, of all beings, had no right to treat me this way! No right to judge me! He was no God! If anything, I was closer to one by far!   

And David too, who now betrayed me! My very own David, who has become increasingly chummy with Louis since our travels; whispering to each other behind Brazilian bookstores, silently watching me through hotel windows, and exchanging these knowing, wordy glances when they think I cannot see. Oh, but then I think they must know that I do!

Sometimes the two of them would even go off together into the jungles, descending the grottos in the early hours of the night. In truth, I hadn’t much minded it at the time. In fact, I coveted those moments, perfect for stalking my favorite prey. And David had always known when to back off. But now…  

Some naïve part of me had assumed they’d gotten these little assemblies out of their systems in the time since. For a while life had been peaceful, returned to normal as we returned to New Orleans. Louis had been mine in one way, David, in another, and there was no _them_. But they were definitely out there conspiring against me now, meeting in the hubbub of urban Louisiana this very instant, no doubt. And I have to say, I was wickedly jealous.  

_Traitors, the both of them…_

I stood from my desk because I couldn’t bear to fall victim to it for a second more. I walked, running my fingers, smooth, across the back of my chair and frowning at the fine, fresh upholstery. Then I ventured across the room to pull the shutters closed on the windows that overlooked the gallery and the Rue Royale. But, even so, the smells and sounds from outside continued reviving old demons in my mind. Things I did not wish to dwell on.

Despite my threats towards Louis and David, being without them was not much help. This place was a haven to me in many ways, yes. Familiar comfort, the streets were too tight, too colorful, and heavy with tourists year round to ever offer any real seclusion for an immortal with senses so finely tuned as mine. But I called it a haunted room, when in reality it is the entire French Quarter that I find so thickly haunting. There is no escaping nostalgia’s unforgiving grip in this place. Certainly not when I resided in its epicenter, in any case.

Trying desperately not to think of this, or Louis and David, I walked to the bed and threw myself onto it. Closing my eyes, I rolled onto my stomach and buried my face in the pillows stacked up on the left side. The downy blanket was soft beneath my fingers. I petted it for a while, then brought it up to rub against my cheek and lips. It smelled like Louis.

With a sigh, I pulled the blanket away and bunched it up in my hand. Now more determined than ever to banish him from my thoughts, I turned onto my back, intertwined my fingers atop my stomach, and relaxed my body into the mattress.

With just a step into darkness, I’d be free of this treachery... I hoped.

 

[…]

 

She was smiling at me.

She’d been smiling at me all evening like that, so purely driven, with pearly incisors proudly revealed. I melted beneath its radiance. And the little devil! She knew exactly what she was after, holding my hand and gazing up at me with sparkling robin egg eyes as we walked home from the hunt. Enraptured, I kept sweeping her up off her feet, laying forceful kisses upon her hands and cheeks and forehead, because there was nothing else to be done about it.

She laughed impishly every time. So unburdened yet.

I thought, _I can deny Claudia nothing._

Of course, neither of us could, especially not in the early years. That was why when she’d asked, so politely, in that way Louis taught her, for a reading of Shakespeare as we settled into our decadent townhouse for the remainder of the night, there was scant resistance from me. Soul-bound thespian that I am, I was thrilled to do it. Anything for my daughter in evil – especially this!   

“Which would you prefer?” I asked, smoothing out the lace on her perfect little white dress.

“Macbeth first,” she said, already holding out the well-worn book for me. Another was still clutched to her chest.    

Louis frowned in disapproval across the way, where he leaned in the doorway between Claudia’s room and my own, but said nothing.

“Wonderful!” I placed her down on her bed. “I’ll play the Lady; I think it’s a good fit, don’t you?”

A quick nod. “And Louis will read for Macbeth.” She said this so assuredly.

And rightfully so. Louis’s eyes widened. Naively, he’d probably not considered the fact that he’d be the one to read with me. But precious, conniving Claudia, with that predatory grin, had no doubt in her mind that he would play her Macbeth.

Of course not. With one look at that innocent mask she wore, he smiled and nodded his acquiescence.

Beautiful, pliable Louis, more spellbound by our child than even I. When I’d first seen them together on that fateful night, I'd known right away that he needed to have her. And how could I deny him such a lasting love as that?    

He walked to me and held his hand out for the book. I gave it over. Then, for the first time of many, we read.

Darkly and in blatant foreshadow, I spoke the lines of the first witch. “When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”

I smiled for Louis as he furrowed his brow at my theatricality. He shouldn’t have expected anything less. And he must’ve realized this, for then, without comment, he read the lines of the second witch.  

“When the hurly-burly’s done, when the battle’s lost and won.”

Claudia broke in as the third. “That will be ere the set of sun.”

I turned to her, showing a devious face of glee for her enthusiasm. I laughed delightedly. Then one by one we read the rest, until, alone, I closed the scene.

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair,” I said in a dreadful whisper. “Hover through the fog and filthy air.”  

And as I watched Louis’s fingers tightened around the binding of the book, I found myself thinking he was much too beautiful to play Macbeth. And much too parallel. 

The rest of Act One went by without interruption. Once the discomfiture faded, I began to enjoy myself more than I’d ever thought possible. That is to say, I was surprised by Louis’s acting abilities – by no means on par with my own, but I’d thought him incapable of portraying anything other than his true self until that moment. Now I realized he was an accomplished liar after all. His reluctance did little to deter it, and, as off-putting as it was to consider, that was precisely the sort of trait I sought out in a lover.   

Bolstered by this insight into his character, the words flowed from me like water. Louis played off my energy well, and I’d started to truly love what we were together, how our voices and bodies complimented each other so utterly. I adored him like this – I took every chance to touch him that the script offered me, and maybe even made some up on my own. Because much like how he starves himself of blood, Louis loves to starve for touch – which, in all actuality, enticed me a great deal more.

Even in moments of Lady Macbeth’s terror, I held him as though he were something precious, not to be scolded too harsh. I wrapped my hands around his shoulders and whispered lines into his ear, eating it up as he face became ruddy with embarrassment. I graced his forehead with the kiss of a wife. 

And in the process, I’d all but forgotten our audience, our Claudia.  

Then in the seventh scene I felt a painful squeezing in my core. Stunned, I stopped mid performance, overcome with sensation, thinking that this wasn’t meant to be. My flesh sizzled and stung. And in my silence, Claudia finished the line I’d been reading.

In a low, pensive voice, she appeared to speak from memory. _“I have given suck, and know how tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me. I would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this.”_

I stared at her, shocked. When I blinked, she was kneeling on the ground, leering back at me with completely blacked-out eyes. Owlishly, I continued watching her, trying to comprehend this grotesque form and the way the world felt somehow tilted suddenly. How dark the room appeared, like a void, even though I had practically wallpapered it with candles just before we’d begun. And she was moving… crawling slowly towards me… giggling…      

I felt someone’s hand on my shoulder. I turned towards the light.

It was Louis.  With narrow, confused eyes, he asked why I had not read my line. And when I looked back, Claudia was golden and blue like the day’s sky and returned to her bed once again. She was still unburdened by time, smiling sweetly at me.

I waved Louis off. Though he kept looking at me oddly after, he did not press. Thankful for that, in truth I was shaken by the vision.

Trying not to let my fear be noticed, I reread what I had heard in Claudia’s syrupy, childish voice so rotted mere moments ago, then on passed that. When it was Louis's turn, I listened intently, waiting for a cue. 

“…Will it not be received, when we have marked with blood those sleepy two of his own chamber and used their very daggers, that they have done ‘t?”

“Who dares receive it other?” I took his hand in my own, my eyes flickering between him and Claudia. “As we shall make our griefs and clamor roar upon his death?”  

Louis glowered something true with this. As though taking my words to heart, rather than what they were – a play – he read the closing dialogue of Act One with a tone laced in sarcasm and distaste. His lip kept twitching to the side, his throat bobbing, as though he were struggling not to spew bile. Or hate.

“I am settled and bend up each corporal agent to this terrible feat,” he spat, glare soldered onto me, and the book closed in his grasp. “Away, and mock the time with fairest show.” And as he recited the final line, his tone took on a dubious, alien quality, as though someone were speaking with him under it. “False face must hide what the false heart doth know.”   

A vignette of shadow crept into my peripheral. I tried not to dwell on it or make a big deal from nothing. My mind was merely being tremulous today, that was all, I kept thinking. I was releasing the tensions and uncertainties building up in my brain, or so I continued to insist to myself. But it was easier said than done. And as always, Louis did and said nothing of it either.

Act Two went quick, not a hitch, and Louis seemed to forget his strange behavior soon. As well as my own. Both he and Claudia were enthralled again, easily engrossed by the material. But Claudia was still a child. By the third act she had begun cutting in near constantly to recite certain lines she favored, and it was becoming clear to me that she was growing restless.

At the start of Act Four she stopped us entirely. “Before you go away, Lestat, I have one last request.”

“Go away?” I echoed, confused by her ominous wording.   

She nodded innocently.  

I chanced a look at Louis, curious for his input. He wasn’t looking back at me. His eyes were on the floor. For whatever reason, his expression was tight and upset, too pale for how recently he’d fed. I tried to tell myself, that’s just how he is.

I turned back to her. “What do you mean, Claudia? Why would you think I’m going away?”

“You’re not,” she amended, holding out the second book she’d been hugging to her chest. “Not until you’ve read me Romeo and Juliet. Just my favorite part, please!”

I let out an incredulous laugh. “Is that all? You worried me for a moment.” I looked over my shoulder again. “I will. But only if Louis plays Juliet.”

Claudia giggled.

Louis scoffed at me. “I will do no such thing.”

“Oh, please, Louis?” Claudia begged. She was grinning like she had earlier with me, flaunting those too-long incisors with cute smugness. “You must. It would be perfect for the scene.”

Convinced he could not say no, I plucked the book from her hands and tossed it at him. Louis caught it with a sound of mild surprise. He looked down at the cover and sighed, pulling his lips into his mouth briefly before glancing back to Claudia again. I could not quite place what it was that I saw in his eyes, but I knew I didn’t like it. Yet, Claudia simply continued to smile at him, reminding me far too much of a cat.

Then Louis looked at me. I raised my brow suggestively and dipped my head, still thinking of how we’d moved together, not minding the excuse to touch him again. I didn’t think it needed to be said. And, luckily for me, it seemed to be enough.

He opened to the page Claudia indicated in silence. I watched for a moment as he read, how his eyes scanned the page, then he returned the book to her and lay down beside her upon the bed. Eyes closed, he posed himself like a corpse, his hands clasped loosely over his ribs, and I instantly knew what scene she wanted to watch us enact before she had even put the book back in my hands. I almost laughed when she showed me where to begin.

No trouble there. No trouble at all.

I sat on the bed. “Ah, dear Juliet, why art thou yet so fair?” I read. “Shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amorous, and that the lean abhorred monster keeps thee here in dark to be his paramour?”

I touched Louis’s cheek, expecting some reaction, but he didn’t flinch, so I kept on reading. And the more I did, the more the words began to burn my tongue. Yet I could not bear to stop.

“For fear of that I still will stay with thee and never from this palace of dim night depart again. Here, here will I remain with worms that are thy chambermaids… Eyes, look your last. Arms, take your last embrace. And, lips, O, you the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss a dateless bargain to engrossing death.”

Then I slipped my hand beneath his head and I kissed him as I imagined Romeo might kiss Juliet. Long and slow and full of regret. And when I was well and done I read Romeo’s final lines and then drank an invisible poison before failing dramatically to the floor.  

On the bergère a few paces away, Claudia was laughing. I opened my eyes and looked at her upside down, wondering when she’d move to sit there; she had a dainty hand covering her mouth. The glint of her nails caught my eye, and I was momentarily distracted by how fragile her fingers seemed.

Louis was moving. I closed my eyes again.

“The lady stirs,” Claudia whispered.

“What’s here?” Louis's voice was thick, but soft as he spoke. “A cup closed in my true love’s hand? Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.— O churl, drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me after…”

It was funny. I knew this story well enough to realize he’d skipped a bit. Much to my disappointment, he’d neglected the moment when Juliet kisses her fallen lover hoping to taste the poison from his lips. But even so, I did not have time to dwell on the implications. Though I could not see his face, the raw emotions behind Louis’s performance astounded and instantly swept me away. I believed that he was truly tormented by the thought of my loss, and the notion made me sick. I felt my stomach churn, then drop.

Suddenly, I heard the teeth-stinging slide of real metal. The high pitched dinging hurt my ears, startling me enough to make me break character and open my eyes again to move. But I saw only Claudia, sitting there with a smooth, white face and black eyes, completely void of emotion, and it made me pause. She was still pretty, but uncannily so – looking everything of the doll I’d made her to be, and nothing of herself.  

She laughed again, lightly, like chimes in the wind, and I laid there motionless as Louis continued his reading.  

“Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief. O, happy dagger, this is thy sheath. There rust, and let me die.”

A thought struck me. _No. This wasn’t right. It hadn’t happened._ But I saw it. I sat up in time to watch as Louis raised the dagger – _where had it come from? Had he been hiding it on his person all along?_ – and then lowered it swiftly towards his gut. And it was no prop; it made impact and he bled like I’ve never seen anyone bleed!

“No!” I jumped up, pulling him to me.

The moment my hands were on him they were covered in a thick layer of red. But that should not be enough to kill him! I realized this even as I watched the life fade from his body. I went to cut my wrist and heal him, but his eyes closed, sunken and dark, and he went limp in my arms. And I froze.

I felt my world narrow down to him. I felt the air leave me in one rush of desperate fear, and I nearly turned my head to the sky to begin screaming or bargaining with God – as if he’d even care – as if he would have allowed it to happen in the first place if he did not wish it – as if he even existed! But there was no sky. It was just the void.

And suddenly I wanted someone to blame! So, who? Louis? But could I really call it his fault? It had been a part of his character since his humanity, this waltz with death. Was he to blame when, truly, he’d been dancing on that precipice all along?

“But who pushed him off?”   

Claudia. I turned to her.

“Why didn’t you stop him?” she asked.

“Me?!” I raged – he never listens to me. “What about you? He’d have stopped if you told him to, yet you just sit there, complacently watching him do it! And why?!”

Claudia blinked once. She was utterly unfazed by Louis’s apparent demise, let alone my mournful accusations. Her face was still so solid looking, so close to porcelain; I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. And I didn’t want to think it, but all the oddness from before suddenly made so much sense. Like when she’d said, “ _Before you go away…”_

I looked down at Louis. “Did you put him up to this?”

With that, her mask finally did crack. Her face swelled with emotion, and she let out a hysterical laugh – much too loud for her body, the laugh of a woman – and slipped from her seat to come stand before me.

“No.” She pointed at my face. “You did!” 

I placed Louis down in the pool of blood. I needed to loom over her, to have that sense of power that it offered me, for in truth I felt helplessly weak. Especially so as the room darkened all around, sucking everything into blackness without mercy. Taking Louis’s body with it.   

“I know the truth.” Claudia was still standing in front of me though. “I know why you treat him as you do – do not show me those crocodile tears, Father.” I tried to deny it, but she cut me off. “You wished for him to die with you,” she said. “You acted out your own demise with this in mind for his fate. Is that not the truth?”

“It’s not!” I screamed, covering my face with the hands still dripping Louis’s blood. “I would never hurt him! I would never _allow_ him to be hurt!”

“You mean, the way he allowed you to be? And by me, his most beloved?”

“What are you talking about?” I frantically shook my head, remembering only then that I should be elsewhere, living in a new reality without her. “No, stop, don’t speak of that! I forgave him! It was only you who wanted me dead, not him! Louis allowed it to happen because he is a coward, but I cannot hate him for it; I fell in love with all that he is!” 

“You’re deluding yourself,” Claudia said, slowly creeping forward. “Alas, you deserve each other, each wanting the other one dead. Admit it, Lestat; you do not love him, you simply wish to possess him. And possession is not love. It’s murder.”

“No! That’s not true! I do love him!”

Claudia laughed yet again. It was so loud, so echoing and demonic that it didn’t sound like it existed in the same dimension as me. It shook me at my very core.

Then gradually her voice began to fade out too, filtering into nothing, along with her form. Though her outline haunted the void I stood in even after, dancing in twirls around me. A white mist hovered in the air in the shape of her little hand, raised with a short, delicate finger pointed directly at me, mocking me for all time.

I closed my eyes.  

It was in that moment I finally realized where I was: a memory, false and distorted by dream. By my guilt. Because she was not Claudia after all, but my inner voice suggesting what deep down I was loath to admit. That all along, while the darkness inside had consumed me, I’d hoped it might extend to him too. I’d hoped, in the most selfish chambers of my heart, that Louis might love me enough to follow…

And when I licked his blood from my hands it tasted like the truth.            

 

[…]

 

I opened my eyes just as an ambulance blared passed on the street outside, sirens pumping out that harrowing screech. It invaded my very essence with panic.

Or had that been the dream?

In any case, my heart felt as though it were making a break for it, banging at the inner wall of my chest; I could only pray my ribcage stayed intact. I was not sure how long I’d survive an escaped heart.

Aside from that, just one thing plagued my mind:

_Find Louis – you must see him alive!_


	2. Louis, "In Absolution"

For me returning home since the turn of the 20th century has always been a rather disconcerting experience, no matter how many times I’ve done it. The smells are there, the same rotten, living smells of flesh, and spiced food, and bile, and debris, and the river. But the skyline has mutated and the mortal style along with it.

The population has grown, but miraculously the sickness fled, and even the poorest street-wanderers and urchins seem to have a clean bill of health about them now. Oh, the wonders of modern medicine. They too now imbibe in would-be expensive spirits and tobacco, bought on donated money. Never too thin, with cheap, artery clogging food in their bellies, and all the necessities stocking the walls of every street corner store and corporate giant seemingly just for them.

Who there would notice one missing loaf of bread? Who would even care?

Then the elite mixed right in, as they’ve always been. I loved them too for being so like how I remembered, with stores bolted shut, lush with foliage and antiques and opened only by appointment. The upturned noses of the women inside the shops with unlocked doors as they judged patrons “worth their time” by the fit and make of their clothing. The pompous air with which they then handed spare change to the urchins from behind the safety of their luxury car windows, as opposed to the carriages I recalled.

I’ve always possessed a sort of loving disdain for the wealthy middle class, having grown up in it. It was partly why I’d chosen to live as modestly as I had, but didn’t mind coming back all that much.

Looking at it now, I could almost convince myself nothing really has changed. Even so, how bizarre it sometimes feels to call this place my home. Here, where so many memories lingered out of place. It was though, still just as humid, just as apt to rain in spontaneity, then drip off the galleries and potted plants lining the French Quarter and onto the top of my head. Just as wonderfully diverse and vivid as I remembered it to be.

It was strange, yet magnificent how different, yet the same this place was from the New Orleans of my time. The one I could still see so well when I closed my eyes.    

This was my first thought as I stepped out of the theater on Canal Street. Not an original one, or even my first time having it, but it was inevitable with the crowds of finely-dressed people passing by, along with the poor and the homeless, sidestepping me to enter through rotating glass doors or continue down the street. All completely ignorant of the ravenous need for each and every one of them growing steadily within me.

It was pure modern luck that none glanced my way long enough to meet my eyes, for surely then they would’ve seen the danger as well as they saw the blinding red traffic lights or the price of the tickets that they so loved to abhor.

My second thought was that _Bram Stocker’s Dracula_ had been a terrible movie.

I leaned against the wall of the theater and took a deep breath. It was a clear, starry night. Even the city lights weren’t enough to dim the sky, and I so wanted to enjoy it.

I tried; I tipped my head up and allowed myself to feel small, a speck of dust in the universe. It was fruitless though. The only comfort I’ve ever found in things unanswered is the thought that perhaps they aren’t meant to be. And perhaps there is a reason for that, which I am also never meant to know. And for a moment, in the face of infinity, I think I could accept that. But to believe that I am part of a larger system of the universe is a blessed thing indeed, and something I’d long ago forsaken. To feel that I am meant to be as I am, rather than existing as a distortion of the divine, an insult to nature…

Sometimes when I look up at the sky, I am able to grasp that mortal sense of salvation, of Godly purpose and bask in it once again. Though it is a guilty pleasure, sometimes it’s enough to convince me to embrace eternity. And in those fleeting moments, I'm willing to live as I am until fate takes me.

But the truth is it’s not really enough. And in the end I have to face facts: to succumb would be so much easier. And I think he knows that too.

_Louis?_

My eyes snapped open. I hadn’t realized I’d closed them until I heard a thought in my head, which was not mine. And how often did I think my own name in a voice other than Lestat’s anyway?

Not very.

I turned to my left; there was David just across the street. He was staring right at me with a question written on his face. I felt a familiar tugging in my chest. I decided to let him come to me, and quite directly, he did.

“How was the movie?” he asked by way of greeting.

I made a vague, dissatisfied gesture.

David paused, the corner of his mouth turned down, and he tilted his head slightly to the right as his eyes roamed my face. “Are you alright?”

I gave him a dubious look.   

He shook his head. “What am I saying? Of course you’re not.”

I averted my gaze. “Will you walk with me, please?” I asked. “You can tell me what you’re thinking.”   

David smiled sadly and offered me his arm. “You too,” he said.    

Wrapped around each other, we headed in the direction of the river. As always, his calm nature was a comfort to me, even if it only existed on a surface level. The understanding words were internal. It reminded me of being around the Ancients in some way. Only I’d never felt quite so endeared to any of them as I did to him, and I knew not their overall opinions of me. Nor did I really care to. David, on the other hand, was usually on my side.   

We walked in silence until we reached the Mississippi. There we began north, towards St. Louis Cathedral looming in the distance. While watching the river rush passed I finally found the courage to give voice to that which was plaguing my mind.  

“You spoke with him,” I stated more than asked. Though surely David heard the timid curiosity in my tone, he was kind enough not to mention it.   

“I did,” he softly replied. “At least, I tried. But, more than anyone, you know how stubborn he is.”

I nodded shallowly, still staring at the murky brown water.  

“What is it exactly you want Lestat to say, Louis?”

“Nothing. I merely want an indication of remorse. I need to believe that he will not threaten me with his life again.”  

David touched my hand. “Could you promise such a thing in return?”

I couldn’t help but feel slightly offended. Though, who can say why? I released his arm and looked at him, asking for elaboration.

He coughed awkwardly into his fist. “I mean, with the future being so hard to predict and all…”         

I sighed. “It’s not that I expect him to never break another promise to me again. No, that would be unreasonable. I simply need him to show me that he will not abandon me so easily. And without even talking to me first…”

“Would you believe him if he did?” David wondered.  

“Maybe,” I said. “But I’m not the one who needs to believe him. He is.”

David hummed and rubbed his chin for a moment before he nodded in understanding.

Sometimes I felt he was the only one that did – understand, that is. Well, he and Gabrielle at least, but to be honest she frightens me somewhat. I had no great desire to discuss this with her.   

“Where is he now?” I asked, unable to help myself.

“Hauled up in your room last I checked. I told him he should go after you, but he flat out refused.” David smiled at me again, but it was strained by painful empathy. I nearly reached out to stroke his cheek when I saw it, wanting to relieve him of this burden. “Be advised, from what I gather he’s in the process of working himself into a proper rage,” he warned. “And who knows where that will lead...”

“Nowhere good,” I guessed.

“What will you do?”

I shrugged. “We will have to wait and see.”

David’s eyes creased in the corners. He clasped my hand in both of his. “You will be coming back, of course.”

I smiled, loving the indirectness with which he often spoke. He said this as fact, but he and I both knew he was asking me for confirmation. It was like a game to me, or a slow dance. Something that made life worth living.   

“In time,” I told him.

David was not satisfied with this, however. He tightened his grip on my hand, frowning at me. “He’s too afraid to say it, but he does feel terribly guilty, you know. It pains him to think of what he’s done to you.”

“I wonder if he knows that,” I mused.

David dropped my hand. I thought for a moment that I’d insulted him by being blasé. But perhaps not, for he took a step towards me, and he seemed to be undergoing some internal struggle. Even while valiantly maintaining eye-contact, his pupils kept twitching, narrowing, then dilating again.

“Are you worried, David?” I asked, because I knew that he was. I simply wanted to hear what he’d say. “Do you doubt what I tell you?”  

He tugged his collar. “Maybe a bit.” 

With a half-hearted laugh, I leaned in to kiss him on the cheek, and then lingered there awhile.

“Please, don’t be worried." I moved back and met his eyes. "There’s no need for it. Every now and again I crave my seclusion, yes, but, as I’m sure Lestat will tell you, I always find my way back.”

“I certainly hope so!” David’s voice sounded somewhat breathless. “He needs you, you know.” He reached up and touched the side of my neck.  _I would miss you dearly._     

I felt myself flush, but I smiled at the gesture of his placating words.  

“As you’re already aware, far worse has occurred between us in the past. So, trust me when I say that everything will be alright,” I assured once more for good measure. Then I took a step away. “But you will look after him for tonight, yes?”

“As much as he allows it,” David said this as though it were a joke. Which we both knew it was not. “And you?”

“I’ve yet to…” a jogger ran by – I followed her with my eyes, “eat.”

“In that case, shall I join you?”

I looked back. “No. Not tonight. I’d rather you were with him.”

David nodded once. “I understand.”

With that said, we walked again in silence until we reached Jackson Square. For the rest of our time together, David kept his mind mysteriously closed to me. Or should I say he did not try invading my own? But he did shoot one last crucial glance in my direction right before we parted ways. Then he headed off just like that, presumably to return to Lestat. And I watched him until he disappeared around the corner of Chartres.

As soon as he was gone from sight, I began towards Bourbon St. with a great ache in my head. I told myself I did not know the reason I wanted to go there, it was merely a whim. But the truth was the familiarity called out to me. And as always, it was the most animated road in the French Quarter, especially at this time of night.

The smell of alcohol laden blood hit me rather suddenly here, renewing my desperation. I idled in the general area for a while trying to get a hold of myself, but it was useless. I was already in my own little enclave of time.  

Although I didn’t want to think about it, my brain refused to follow suit. When I looked down the roads were unpaved and muddied my feet with every step. I heard English turn to French all around me. Nauseated, I ducked into a crevice between two buildings to hide as I rode out the sinking feeling burrowing through my bones. I rubbed my hands over my face and wiped down to the sweat that was beading around my collarbone. The heat was suddenly suffocating, thick with the smell of decay.  It became unbearable for me.  

It was the sound of girlish laughter that brought me back to the present. Just a few feet from the shadow where I hid, a young woman in a green silk dress, tiny like a slip with straps as thin as thread, stumbled to a stop. A strap fell off her shoulder as she leaned against a wall with one slender hand. She had her leg up in the air as she tried to fix the ties of her 4-inch stiletto, which was rapidly escaping from her foot. Laughing and muttering to herself with slippery words, though she was alone, she was obviously very inebriated. Perhaps even drugged.

And as just one of many more boisterous partiers, this quiet, happy girl with nothing particularly beautiful about her – at least not to _them_ – no one paid any mind.

Except me. I drew her to me without meaning to do it. She looked up and her smile brightened when she saw me, and then she was in my arms…

I drank from the crease of her elbow, persuaded there by fresh bruises haloing dot-like wounds over veins. Her blood, thinned by alcohol and tinged with something sour, burned as it slid down my throat. But I let it wash over me with some guilty relief. I craved the numbness it offered – it was a salve compared to the dread.

Once the deed was done, I was too far gone to remember to dispose of the body. I left her there, scarred by the marks of my teeth. Then I wandered off in one direction or another, intent on finding a hole to crawl in and weep.     

In some quiet residential part of the city I chose a tree to do it beneath – tall and draping, stained green by moss, and definitely older than I. I sat there and rode out the pain and the drunken sickness. And when finally the world had ceased the worst of its horrid spinning, I stood and, still unwed from most feeling and common sense, began in what then seemed to be some arbitrary direction. But now I know I’d been unconsciously making my way home.

I walked slowly for quite a while. The night had begun warding off most cautious people, so the way was predominately solitary. In fact, it was almost peaceful. However, once I was back in the French Quarter I was suddenly hit by a second wave of high. It struck so quickly and with such force that I sobbed aloud and I slumped against a wall in the gleam of a streetlamp.

Fittingly, I sounded like just another pathetic drunk wandering the night. When I closed my eyes I could all but trick myself into believing, if only for a split second, that I was again that pathetic, poisoned mortal I’d once been. Doing just this, in this exact place, for such a similar reason.    

But no. It wouldn't do to think on that. There was plenty else to think on – memories that had been my sentience for these last few silent months. After all, had there not been moments worth sharing, I would not fear losing him as much as I do, now would I?   

And oh, what great power that thought held over me…

Though, apparently not more than the alcohol – not enough to keep me awake.  

 

[…]

 

The next thing I knew, I was standing at that same corner in the French Quarter, at that same time of night, but the years depleted. I was dressed in all my constricting layers, plus coat and tie, returned to both finery and respectability. Or at the very least some convincing mockery of it. And there was a capricious sense of tranquility and order alongside the chaos in the air. Secretly, I so coveted it.  

And I hated that I did. The idea that this could be the case even while the body count kept piling up all around me simply appalled me at the time.

Though I wondered, could I really be to blame when I was not even given a real, decent choice? Or was the problem not that the presented choices were unsavory, but that all along I’d been looking between the wrong ones?      

When Lestat found me on that corner, I was standing outside a tavern, loud with music, and considering the merits of accepting this farce as fact versus baking myself in the sun. Lestat startled me out it. Come to think of it, I never did make up my mind.

“There you are,” he tittered. “I’ve been looking all over for you.” He was grinning spectacularly. Without hesitance he draped his arm over my shoulders and I felt his lips brush my cheekbone.

“Where is Claudia?” I immediately asked.

“Tucked into her room after a successful hunt. You should’ve seen her, Louis – she was magnificent!”

I nodded and tried not to show my lack of enthusiasm.

Evidently, I failed.

“Don’t look so grim. I mean it; you should join us more often!” insisted Lestat. “No doubt she’d give a good show if her beloved Louis was there to watch her.” His fingers dug into my arm. 

“Next time, perhaps,” I mollified, though I had no intention of following through.     

Lestat did not persist, luckily. Instead, he moved so that he was facing me directly and looked me in the eye for a long moment. Once I was thoroughly shaken by the heat in his gaze, his hands landed on my forearms and slid down until his fingers encased my wrists. Then he smiled as he placed my hands on his own body, and his found my waist, and we began to slowly move.

“What are you doing?” I asked as if it weren’t obvious. I vainly hoped he might still change his mind and stop.   

Lestat shrugged. “Dancing with you.”

I looked around the mostly abandoned street for some danger. But I knew I had no excuses to use on him. He probably wouldn’t have listened to them if I did.  

I huffed. “If you must.”   

He laughed at my obvious reluctance and spun us around. “Oh, I must!”

So, we danced; to the melody of the tavern, and the singing of the cicadas, and the drumming of running water as it dripped off wrought iron, we danced. Lestat moved with no great purpose or technique about him, but his steps were sure, and he was light on his feet – the perfect improvising lead. I was silently amazed by him; I’d never known myself to enjoy dancing, but the ease with which we moved together had nearly converted me. I found that I could not help but return his elation, the bright smile plastered to his face, with a version of my own, more subdued.

And in that moment, all I could think was, _He is so very handsome._  

“What about you, Louis?” he asked me as we moved. “Have you been to hunt?”

I frowned. “Yes.”

Lestat hummed, contemplative, and his eyes searched my face. I could feel his hand, where it was on my hip, audaciously stroking beneath my waistcoat against the fabric of my shirt. And I knew then that there was something he wanted from me. Even more so when he leaned in and kissed me lightly on the lips.

“What’s the meaning of all this?” I asked warily.   

“You look like you need it,” he stated. Then he leaned in and kissed me once again.  

I frowned at him after, not knowing what I was meant to say. It was not every day that he read me so easily after all. But usually he did not spare my feelings a second thought, let alone try to pacify me. I had to wonder if there was some ulterior motive behind this. Or if he really did know something he was not supposed to about my thoughts.   

Lestat seemed to take my silence for an answer, though. He said nothing after that. He simply continued to dance.   

When he looked at me, however, there was something behind his eyes I did not want to name; I felt my gut flip, suddenly tense. And then I became so aware of his grip on my body that I stopped breathing. A rush of heat flooded the top layer of my skin. Foreboding, something thunderous was buzzing in the air, like a storm.

I wondered what he was thinking. But the truth was I could guess. And being close to him like this, feeling his body move with and against my own, was doing ardent things to me. When we finally came to the end of our dance, it was beneath the flickering oil flame of a lamppost. Lestat’s grip on me did not falter though; he continued giving me that look, the predatory one that I now acknowledged as the face of his desire for me.

At that point it was an expression I’d only seen two or three times before, and it was usually followed by a rough night in bed. And with it I thought I’d discovered his motives finally.

I was right. But when he took me home he was not forceful with me like I expected him to be. He treated me like delicate lace as he laid me out on the bed and relieved me of my layered clothing piece by piece. He coaxed out my voice with his fingers and tongue, starting slow, too slow, and working me up to a sweating, aching, begging mess. And when at last he was satisfied, he entered me, and it was with a great care and tenderness which I did not know he possessed. 

Later I would recount this night as the first time we’d ever made love. But afterwards, in those moments when my skin still felt static, I cried soundlessly against his shoulder. I cried for many things: my deceased human self, the existence of my monstrous child in the next room, the unrelenting fear and desire for death that had always consumed me utterly and continued to even now, against love. And the unabashed affection for Lestat that I could feel, palpable, as it steadily began solidifying within me.

I’d never been more at his mercy than I was at that moment. Never more than when he was so painstakingly kind to me, holding me in his arms, whispering how much he loved me. He’d never been closer to the reflection of my God. And I’d never wanted him as badly as I did right then.     

Even as death took me that morning, because of Lestat my dreams did not return me to that darkened place I’d been in on the street. I existed solely in that moment, for that moment – for Lestat. Because I could see my growing need for him.  

 

[…]

 

When I opened my eyes we were on the street again, and Lestat’s distraught face was the first thing I saw. He was kneeling there, shaking me by the shoulders and frowning hard; worry lines marred his handsome face. He looked somehow older than I remembered, with something saddened in his eyes. And his clothes were different too. Odd.

I tried to recall why we’d returned to this corner and when he had found the time to change outfits, but couldn’t for the life of me. Not that it mattered. After all, I was still convinced I was dreaming.

Until I heard him.    

“Louis, my god! What the hell are you doing?” Lestat bellowed. “Wake up!”  

His voice startled me with its intensity. I narrowed my eyes at him, realizing suddenly what felt so off kilter about this dream; it was too vivid to be concocted by me. But also it could not be a memory that I knew, and I was not sure what to make of it. For, surely Lestat had not come for me – he was too stubborn for that. But as I stared silently at him, contemplating this, he reached forward and pulled me upright, a hand remaining on my shoulder thereafter. And I was astonished by the solidity of his touch.

I found myself gaping. “You’re really here,” I gasped and placed my hand over his.

Lestat scrunched up his nose. “And you’re really drunk.”  

His eyes kept sweeping over me like before, but more violently now. I did not understand why he felt the need, or what he was even looking for, but I did not mind it either.

Then, “I’m taking you home,” he decided, already guiding me to my feet.

Oh, I knew he was cross with me for drinking tainted blood. I could hear it in his voice. But it was inconsequential as long as he stayed by my side. I leaned into him less because of my wobbly legs and more because I simply wanted to. Since reliving our dance I craved him more than ever.

And even though his English words sounded repulsively foreign to my ears, even though they confused me so, like his simple clothes, I did not care. I used his sleeveless shirt to drag him closer to me. I buried my face in his uncovered neck.  

“’m already home,” I heard myself mutter.  

Lestat adjusted his weight and wrapped his arms around me. His grip was painfully tight on my sides, but I relished his presence too much to be anything but thrilled by it. After what felt like far too short a time however, he loosened up and shifted away from me.

I made a sound of displeasure and almost protested, but stopped when he spoke in a soft, self-deprecating voice so near to my head. One that was hauntingly familiar as it vibrated against my skull.

“Don’t say that, Louis.”  

I felt my chest constrict unpleasantly. I did not understand what he was implying. Had I said something wrong? In this floating state between past and present, I hardly even remembered what we were talking about. All that matter was that Lestat was here.

But my sensible self, buried deep within, must have gotten something pivotal out of his words, because I latched onto them. And him. I became obsessed: I needed so badly for him to know how I needed him. Why did he not wish to hear me? I could not comprehend it.   

“You should rely on yourself more,” Lestat said, reverting to French, much to my relief. “You should do as you want. Go where you want again, whether or not I am there. Don’t let me hold you back, or drag you somewhere you cannot stand to be.”  

Something about that made me angry – no, distressed is a better word. It sounded as though he was dismissing me, the thought of which caused me great pain. And in the haze of no inhibitions, that pain quickly revealed its true nature.

I pulled him back to me. “But I wanna go w’ you,” I begged, stumbling over my drunken words. “Please, ’stat, take me with.”

I felt his ribs move as he heaved a sigh. He encouraged me to step out of his grasp by pressing on my chest. I resisted, but he squeezed me briefly as if to say he was not going away, then he wrapped an arm under my shoulders for support, and we began walking in the direction of home.

Though in truth, I didn’t really _want_ to return there anymore, I’d meant what I said. If that was Lestat’s desire, then it was where I’d gladly be.      

Time moved swiftly in his company. And when drowned in liquor. Before I could get my wits about me, or even just sober up a bit, we were already crossing into the courtyard off the Rue Royale via the carriage entrance, then coming in through the kitchen door, passed the dining room, and up the hallway stairs.

I hardly had a moment to note the fancy, futuristic appliances all around the townhouse (the electric stove, the telephone, the television against the wall), though I’m sure if I had I would have been thoroughly shaken into sobriety by them. Too, I heard the sound of someone walking in the front room, steps too heavy to belong to a little girl, but I did not have the wherewithal to think much of it before we were already in Lestat’s room.

As soon as I stumbled onto his bed (too soft) and he had closed the doors (wrong color), I was urging him closer to me. I yearned for his mouth, and he must have known or at least seen the desire on my face, for he crawled atop and kissed me. And it was a molten press of the lips, passionate, and full of sorrow, but not in a bad way.

I was addicted to its taste. I moaned into him and somehow managed to fight off the compulsion to pierce through his lip with my fangs. But I could not stop myself from thinking that I needed to have him inside me. In any way. Just soon. Now.     

Lestat did not seem to hold any reservations about this. As though he’d read my mind, he was already stripping me purposefully, his eyes blown wide and full of some manic lust. And once he was done, he began to kiss and suck my neck. A shiver of warm pleasure coursed through me; I reveled in it, because my innards were so hot already, but my skin felt tortuously cold. And with it came a sudden need to feel him drink from me too. But even in my intoxicated state I would never ask him to do such a thing.

No. Just so long as he didn’t remove his hands from my body, I would be content.    

“My love,” Lestat whispered then. His voice sounded so hurt as it hit my skin that it was almost a lash, a scar. So distraught, yet loving, that it reddened me.

I reached up and ran my fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, unsure what to make of it, or even how to feel. So, with hope I said his name back like a question. Like a prayer. For what else was there to do?  

He sat back and looked me in the eye. His hand came up, caressing my jaw, and his tongue peaked out to wet his lips.  

“I’m going to fuck you now,” he said. “Nice and slow.” Then he leaned over, pulled a bottle of lube from the bedside drawer, and showed it to me.  

I swallowed hard around nothing, nodding my head in agreement.

Grateful for the lack of pretense, I leaned up and kissed him again, this time with tender reverence befitting an Egyptian Pharaoh, reclined on his throne and covered in gold. And in turn, he drank me up like a stranded man coming upon the Nile, upon paradise for the first time in weeks. Reaching for the misleading shimmer of hope, as if he were oh, so ignorant of all that lurked below. As if.

The thought of it sobered me somehow. Or maybe it was just the way he touched me. The way he rubbed my dick with tight, drawn out strokes until I was so hard that it ached. The way he sucked on my chest and fingered me open with the slick inward press of his hand.

It felt amazing. I gasped in relief, thrusting against it.   

Before Lestat came along, I’d never thought my body would grow accustomed to being penetrated in this way. And I certainly never thought I’d find any enjoyment out of it. A mortal me wouldn’t have even entertained the notion for a second.

But now I knew better. I felt myself relaxing under him, remembering how good it felt to have him inside, and using that memory as fodder for my raging desire.        

He played me like the harpsichord he so fancied. It was as if he knew exactly which keys to press to elicit his favorite sounds from my throat. I clung to him as he did it, dragging my nails across his skin thoughtlessly, feeling my own begin to tingle with heat and fervor for his touch. Until the room began to sway, and I was so hot and heavy on the mattress that I thought I might melt through it.    

Once convinced of my readiness, Lestat retracted his fingers. I sighed at the loss, but reminded myself it was temporary. I watched him hungrily as he unbuttoned his pants, licking my lips at the sight of him untucking his dick and slathering it with lube. Then, smiling, he positioned it right against my hole, and he leaned forward to kiss my open mouth. And finally, he spread my legs and entered me in one long thrust.

“Oh, god…” I moaned around his tongue. But it wasn’t enough yet. I needed to feel more of him, so I ran the hand not locked on his arm down his spine.

Not yet moving beyond merely burying himself inside me, Lestat sat back out of my hands and peered down at my face impassively. And yet his eyes were so dark, his mouth damp and red, and I gasped when I felt him throb within me. He pressed forward again, despite already being buried to the hilt. He was so deep that it actually hurt, and the way he stared into my eyes while he did it, as if testing my reaction, made me feel hot with shame.

Then he dipped back down and whispered my name directly into my ear.

“Louis...”

Overwhelmed by emotion and searing lust from the sound of his voice, I closed my eyes, and convulsed slightly. So, he laughed and did it again. And this time it was worse. I sobbed and smacked a hand on the bed.

“Please, Lestat!”

“Please, what?” he taunted.

I whimpered and tossed my head to the side, unable to find the words.

Lestat grunted some impatient complaint. When still I said no more, he took both my wrists and pinned me to the mattress, apparently displeased by my lack of a response – of which he was the cause. His voice was hoarse when he spoke.

“Oh, how I love having you at my mercy,” he said. “Go on, Louis, beg for me some more. If not, I just might abandon you again.”

 _How cruel_ , I thought. Why must he always try to cut me down? But, then, it didn’t matter. How could it? We were too deeply connected, especially now, like this, for me to ever believe that he’d leave me. Let alone for his words to do any lasting harm. And in this state of lust emboldened by liquid courage, I was sure of it. Either way, I probably wouldn’t have resisted. Much.

“Please, Lestat,” so I abided by him, gazing up into his eyes with brazen desire. “I want to feel you moving in me. I want to feel the proof that you haven’t gone away.”

That did it. His mournful frown was all I needed to see to know I’d said enough. Then he began to build up a tempo at last, slow, like he said it would be, but with particularly forceful jabs every now and again that made me cry out. His rhythm was steady, measured to make the air escape me in strangled bursts with every thrust. And I devoured each second of it.

I tried wrapping my arms around him, but he was still holding me down. I groaned pathetically and struggled against his grasp, hoping he would get the picture and release me. And he did, but the moment he let go, I was pinned once more. This time by his kiss.

Well, that was fine. I pulled him closer so I could feel his chest on mine, but it was Lestat who couldn’t keep his hands off me it seemed. He allowed them to roam my body while he fucked me gently, gliding over my every plane and curve like a blind man studying a sculpture. Flicking over my nipples, and tickling the sensitive skin of my stomach, then settling on digging his fingers into the meat of my thighs and spreading them further apart.

It hurt, but I loved it. The pain just made the heat coil tighter in my gut.

And coil, it did. Slowly…          

Something about slow sex is maddeningly more intense than the fast, rough kind, I’ve found. I would never admit it to him, because he would take it too well, but whenever Lestat bides his time with me like this I am always overcome by my love for him. It makes me feel particularly dominated, having him expertly draw out my pleasure, like torture, more so than any bruise he’s ever left on me. As though at his mercy is where I belong.

And I love how starved it leaves me for him. It makes me think maybe it has its roots in what Lestat says of me – that I love to starve myself.

Well, I don’t know about that. But I do know that I love it when he starves off my release like this. I love to sit in the moment between desperation and climax, lingering in his control. And even if I would not give this thought voice, surely he could see it in my eyes. Surely, he’d known all along.   

Only when the end neared did he finally pick up the pace. With climax peaking around the corner, Lestat began fucking me up the bed, sucking my neck and chest until it was freckled with the evidence of our love-making.

I pulled him closer to me yet, desperate to feel the touch of his skin on any part of my body that I could. The burn, the stretch of where we became one ached so pleasantly with the friction, I wished he would never leave. I wished he could go on numbing my mind this way forever. We had the time, did we not?

That idea alone was enough to bring me closer to the edge than I had been already, now just teetering on the cusp of orgasm. I moaned, telling myself to hold back. Not yet, not yet, you haven’t had enough of him yet. But Lestat was all but forcing it out of me.

When I looked up, he was smirking, like he knew what he was doing to me – and he probably did, the fiend, because then his hand came down to wrap around the base of my cock, and he squeezed it tightly as he tried to get me to break. He kept alternating his rhythm and the undulating motion with which he penetrated me over and over again, stretching me further open. I could feel it acutely.   

I was so overwhelmed, my everything felt like it was on fire, and I immediately became intensely aware of how wet the crack of my ass was. It made me shiver. Had I been in my right mind, I would’ve been embarrassed, mortified even by the fact. But as it were, it only made me burn all the hotter. And I found myself thrusting my hips towards Lestat’s hand, seeking out that sweet release I so craved.       

And then it happened. I jerked as he struck my prostate with expert precision, and there came a rush of endorphins that overtook me all at once. My orgasm, so powerful, washed over me in a great flood of sensation, first starting as a puddle of rain, then gradually gaining depth and momentum as Lestat continued to fuck me with steady, domineering force, until at last the dam broke. And I came, gushing into his hand and onto my own chest with a high-pitched, almost pained cry.

Lestat was close too, I could tell. He doubled down, sliding his dirty hand through the ejaculate covering me, rubbing it into my skin like lotion as he leaned down and kissed me. And the moment our lips met, he was coming too. So hard that he accidentally(?) bit my tongue as he filled me.

I groaned around the taste of my own blood, trembling in the aftershocks of pleasure still coursing through me. The last one happening right as Lestat slid out.

When most of the pleasure had left us, Lestat stripped down bare and lay beside me. As soon as he was settled, I followed, searching for more of his touch, and rested my head, heavy, atop his chest. In the beam of afterglow, I gazed up at him with my eyes still half closed. But my reverence was fleeting; I couldn’t stand to look directly at him; he was far too blinding yet.

“Louis, I want to you to take my blood,” he whispered then, so quiet that it as though I wasn’t meant to hear it. There was a whiny, complaining quality to his voice though, reminiscent of his inner child. 

I chose not to acknowledge it. He knew my feelings on the matter. It seemed to me that he didn’t require an answer anyway, just that for him it was something that needed to be said. And now that my climax had sobered me somewhat, along with the sudden boiling of my blood from his bite and his words, I was reminded of an urgent matter. There was a confession I too had yet to make, one that, though surely he must’ve guessed to be true, I feared to speak aloud. But for my sake, and for the sake of his understanding, it was a must.    

“David says…” I hesitated just long enough for Lestat to shoot me a questioning glance. I trailed a finger over the bumps of his ribs when he did, trying to keep him calm with affection – to let him know I was not about to launch an assault. “David thinks that you need me, did you know that?”

Lestat glowered almost instantly and opened his mouth to say God knows what, but I did not give him the chance to hurt me again. I refused to be his victim.   

“But I disagree,” I said, rubbing my palm idly up and down his chest. “In fact, it’s really I who needs you. And I _know_ you know that.”

Lestat had no reply for me. He must have thought I was too drunk still to know what I was saying, because he made a dismissive noise in the back of his throat that I felt against my cheek. Though any other time he’d have ravished me after such a bold confession. Then he slid out from under me and, completely at home in his own nakedness, walked over to stand by the window.

Already, I missed his touch.

To his credit, I was still drunk, too drunk, in fact, to rise and follow him. I could only admire his build from afar as I steadily began slipping to sleep. But when I’d sobered up by the following night, nothing changed. I still believed what I’d said. I still felt it to be true. And I still dreaded the thought of being left behind by him. As I had well before all this began.    

Before he tried to die without me.   

And that, I have to assume, was why even after everything our useless fighting continued…


	3. David, "In Conclusion"

The townhouse on Royal Street was once like a mythical castle to me – like a scene from a fairytale come to life. When I was mortal it had seemed such a distant place, real as a particularly vivid dream, one worth revisiting, but that I would not allow myself to. The description Louis gave in his book did it atmospheric justice, I found myself thinking, enough to solidify it in my mind like concrete. He did have a way with words, that one.

Though now that I was living it, the magic lingered, yes, but it had lost some of its flare. Disillusion is a funny thing in that way. It’s both a welcome respite from skepticism and fear, and a jail cell with which to hold childish wonder. To remedy this, I often try to look at this place through his eyes. I tried to imagine the old décor and wallpaper, the finely crafted furniture and harpsichord, the view from the gallery as it had been when new.

Looking now, I saw only the modern refurbishing in the old setting. I wondered how it looked to him.

Shaky, I imagined.     

Louis was too drunk to even walk on his own when Lestat brought him in that night. And he smelled bitter, like alcohol and some drug off a victim that was clogging his veins. I stayed where I was, pacing behind the walls of the parlor as Lestat basically carried him upstairs, unwilling to bear witness. I deeply regretted not staying with him now; Lestat would likely ream me for it in retrospect.

But then, I also supposed it was better that I had not been the one to retrieve him. Lestat needed to continue filling that position for all our sake's.

It worked – I heard the proof, I’m not too shy to admit, even while knowing Louis would probably be mortified to know it. But only temporarily. By the following evening Louis’s discrepancies were of their right mind again, Lestat grew hungry for more, and just like that they were back to their ceaseless bickering. 

I’d become fluent in French since coming to live with them, and rather quickly, with help from the supernatural skills of all vampires. It did seem to be their preferred language to fight in. So, when I detected Louis’s soft words from above, I easily understood them.

“I’m not afraid of you, Lestat.”

Hearing him say that, I knew he was thinking of the threats Lestat had beaten him with to conclude their argument from before. It was almost comical. He always seemed so exasperated by it, rather than worried.

I laughed, knowing exactly what Lestat’s reaction would be. I picked the words out of thin air before the letters even had a chance to manifest in his brain.  

“You should be!”

“Well, I’m not.” Louis sounded wary. “I’m afraid _for_ you.”

“Why?” barked Lestat. “Not even the sun can kill me now! The issue resolved itself!”

“That attitude of yours is precisely the issue. I don’t understand why you’d do such a thing in the first place, let alone when you knew I’d still be here waiting for you.”

Exasperated, sure. Not unaffected though. When he said this, Louis sounded as though he might break, and right then it hit me just how deeply personal this all was for him. I was not sure how I had overlooked it before. I’d known he was upset, but he always is to some degree, especially when it comes to Lestat. But it seemed even in my anxiousness I’d underestimated his suffering.

And now I felt intrusive, as though my ear were plastered to their door, listening to a conversation that had started here more than a century before my birth.

But you see, they must have known I was listening. It’s spectacularly hard not to be aware of the presence of another of our kind when it shares the same city, let alone the same lair as us. But then I supposed Louis did not mind or he would not have returned here in the first place, let alone confided in me. And Lestat probably enjoyed that I was his audience for this – in fact, make that “definitely.” He was an immortal actor after all. Always willing to put on a show. So, why beat around the bush about it?

Speaking of which…  

“Would you like to hear the reasons?” he asked with some reluctance. I could all but see his pleading face.

“No. I know the reasons; they don’t matter,” Louis said flatly.  

“Then what do you want? A miracle? For all my old wrongs to magically right themselves and for things to go on as if they never happened?”

Lestat was growing incensed again. I knew, because his voice gains a certain power when he gets worked up. It’s a symptom of his need to protect his truth, I think. And that, then, was the question: is Lestat really angry? Or does he simply pretend to be for fear of seeming weak?    

Muffled, Louis’s voice came out reassuring. “Of course not.”

“Then what?” demanded Lestat.

Louis said nothing for a long while. I heard no movement either. Curious, I unintentionally probed his mind. It was always easier than I anticipated, breaking through without his resistance. Almost instantly, I was shown an image: Lestat shirtless and glowering down on me with a distraught look on his face. White sheets wrinkled, but soft under a pale hand, and streetlamps shining through the window as the only light source.

Suddenly, I felt a heartache so strong I clenched my chest. Longing and fear and despair all washed over me at once, delivered in a single blue package wrapped in twine. So vivid was this experience, a desire to be heard by Lestat without having to speak. A desire to return his pain to him. But to cure him. To lie with him. And to _die_ with him…?

A tear rolled down my cheek. I wiped it away and I pulled out of the connection, utterly overwhelmed.          

“To be with you always,” was what Louis ended up saying. “To have you within reach.”

I nearly stormed up the steps to shout at him for not saying more – to curse them both out until they ceased with these foolish mind games and simply spoke frankly for a change! But then I thought better of it. Ignoring that I already had, who was I to intrude on a lover’s spat two centuries in the making? A bit intimidating, that. I couldn’t change it. Though God knows I’ve tried.

Then again who’s to say I should want to?

The fighting stopped after that. I knew they were “making up,” but was I unperturbed by the sound of it after so many weeks of travel. I’d grown accustomed to them. And, nevertheless, I was fond of our lives together and all they entailed. And hours later, I ended up sleeping on that thought.

The following night the doors to their room were still shut as though they’d never left, even though I knew they must’ve gone to hunt at some point before I’d risen. Louis, at least, required it. I hovered there for a moment, keeping my thoughts to myself. But one of them noticed; I heard the sound of rustling fabric and feet on wood not long after.

Then Louis came into the hall. He greeted me dressed in the same clothes from two nights before, but badly wrinkled and dotted with the odd spot of blood. Not all the buttons on his shirt had been done up right, and one was missing, leaving a good portion of his chest and collarbone exposed.

Closing the door behind him, he turned to me with a smile on his face. I resisted the sharp, abrupt urge to touch him.

“I have to thank you,” he said, leading me towards the stairs.  

“What for?”

“Being patient with us. I feel I am indebted to you. Would you allow me to repay you?”

I stopped with my hand on the rail. The hallway was suddenly a few degrees warmer. Louis descended the rest of the flight without looking back, however, and turned left into the parlor. I quickly followed him, trying to catch my lost breath. 

I cleared my throat meaningfully as I crossed the threshold. “Was there something you had in mind?”

Louis, who was now standing by the sofa near the window, looked up at me with his mouth open in a small “o” of surprise. Initially I was not sure what it meant, but after a moment he laughed strangely and turned his gaze out to the street.

“Yes.”

Demure thing. Had he been to hunt more recently, he might have blushed. 

“And Lestat?” I wondered.

Louis gestured noncommittally. “Gone out the window.”

I groaned. “He’s sulking again!”

“No, nothing like that,” he quickly amended. “I merely encouraged him to find his entertainment for the night elsewhere.”

Now it was my turn to be embarrassed. “Oh?”

“Yes,” Louis went on without pause. So breezy, it made me wonder if I was reading him incorrectly. “He can be such a hypocrite. I did not wish for him to… do something he’d regret. Not now, when we’ve only just reconciled.”

I tried not to look anxious. “I see.”

Louis smiled apologetically. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“No, no,” I assured. “I just don’t want to assume... I want to be sure that I’m understanding you correctly.”

“You are.” With that, he sat on the sofa and gestured for me to join him. When I did, he went on. “You can’t know how grateful I am for you.”

“Oh, but I can. The feeling’s completely mutual.”

“Good,” he said. So much heat behind that single syllable.

Whenever he was this blunt, it never failed to shock me. Maybe it was the polite, proper way he spoke, even when uttering the most improper, impolite insinuations. Maybe it was the sense of importance that came from the dependence he placed on those close to him. Maybe it was simply his beauty. But whatever the case, knowing Louis taught me to sympathize with Lestat more than ever before.

I couldn’t blame him for anything, not a single thing from that book, good or evil. Not even for the blatant thoughtlessness he displayed in the Gobi Desert. After all, who wouldn’t want Louis to share their eternity? Who could resist killing him to achieve it? And who wouldn’t want him in their bed? Because he was worth having, that was my thought as he leaned towards me, in this life and the next.

In fact, they both were. And that’s why, even after everything, every ugly argument and faulty mask, I was still with them. Because of love. And, really, that’s all there was to it.  

Here’s to hoping it lasts! 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should teach a class called “Torturing Louis in Fanfiction 101,” huh? lol 
> 
> For the record, I don’t actually think that Lestat intended for Louis to “follow” him when he tried to commit suicide (assuming it would’ve worked). But I got the idea while rereading TOTBT to use this as a reason for them to argue, because I always took issue with Louis not having a bigger reaction to finding out. And I wanted Lestat to have some reason to feel guilty enough about it to actually go after him and reconcile later, so for the sake of the drama I just decided to roll with it. 
> 
> On that note, conveniently I’ve always wanted to write a scene of them acting Shakespeare together, so it worked out that my giftee wanted IWTV-era or TOTBT-era Rue Royale fic. Because with this “clever” use of flashbacks, I’ve managed to give her both, plus fulfill my own selfish dreams at the same time! lol
> 
> @wicked-felina/Rebness; 
> 
> Consider this a “thank you” for the support you’ve shown me since I started posting in this fandom a little over a year ago. I was thrilled to be assigned to you. I felt like I owed you for all the comments you’ve left on my stuff, and I really hope it shows in the sheer effort I put into finishing this story on time lol 
> 
> Feel free to come chat with me about it whenever you want ;3c
> 
> Happy Holidays!~


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